The affair that ended his marriage, his battle with the bottle – and how his Mary Poppins co-star Julie Andrews scared him to death... Dick Van Dyke's memoir reveals a Hollywood life of 'magnificent indulgence'
From ‘The Dick Van Dyke Show’ to ‘Diagnosis: Murder’, from a famously dodgy London accent in ‘Mary Poppins’ to ‘Night At The Museum’, Dick Van Dyke has been a star for nearly 70 years. But his life hasn’t been practically perfect in every way – he has battled alcoholism and suffered the tragic deaths of his first wife and long-term partner. Now 90, he married second wife Arlene Silver, 45 years his junior, in 2012.
For some reason, my hair curled as soon as I arrived in London to start filming Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and few of the English crew even recognised me. In fact, as the film’s opening racetrack scene was shot, the assistant director walked through a crowd of extras, handing out flags they were supposed to wave as the cars passed, and he gave one to me, too.
‘But I’m in the movie,’ I said.
‘Not yet, mate,’ he replied. ‘But you will be if you wave that pennant when the camera is pointed at you.’
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was a movie that I repeatedly turned down. The movie’s producer, Albert ‘Cubby’ Broccoli, known for his tight-fisted control of the James Bond movie franchise, desperately wanted to re-team Julie Andrews and me after the success we’d enjoyed with Mary Poppins.
Dick Van Dyke writes: I will never forget the moment I read the script for Mary Poppins. I put it down, turned to Margie and told her that it was sensational. Walt Disney offered me the role of Bert the chimney sweep, opposite Julie Andrews, who had been cast as the practically perfect nanny Mary Poppins. She was a lady first and foremost, but she also had a great, whimsical sense of humour. I never once saw her get angry about anything or utter a single complaint
I liked to joke that I kept in shape to avoid assisted living, but I maintained a pace that would have had people half my age hiring an assistant, writes Dick Van Dyke
I can’t speak for Julie’s reasons, but both of us turned him down. I thought the script had too many holes and unanswered questions. However, each time I said no, Cubby came back with more money. I’m talking serious money – more than seven figures, which in those days was mind-boggling, plus a percentage of the back end, which I never counted on. So I finally agreed.
I made one last stipulation. I didn’t want to reprise my English accent, which I’d struggled with in Mary Poppins. Not a problem. My character was suddenly an eccentric American inventor. Spanning ten months, production was headquartered in England but also touched down in Bavaria and the South of France.
As we shuttled between London and the South of France, Margie [Van Dyke’s first wife] suffered health problems. A local doctor surmised she might have cervical cancer. She took the kids back home to California and underwent a series of medical tests.
When I told Cubby that I needed to go home and be with my wife while she had more examinations, he understood and wished me well.
I was gone only a few days. Margie’s tests came back negative and I jetted back to Europe, only to have my agent inform me that Cubby had docked me $80,000 for missing work. Furious, I didn’t want to talk to him after that, which wasn’t good since I was already unimpressed with the director, Ken Hughes. Quite simply, I thought he was wrong for the picture. One day I heard him grouse that he had to rewrite Roald Dahl’s script. Who rewrote Roald Dahl?
I know the film is beloved by many but for me it lacked the magic of Mary Poppins, which its producer had hoped to emulate.
I will never forget the moment I read the script for Mary Poppins. I put it down, turned to Margie and told her that it was sensational. Walt Disney offered me the role of Bert the chimney sweep, opposite Julie Andrews, who had been cast as the practically perfect nanny Mary Poppins. She was a lady first and foremost, but she also had a great, whimsical sense of humour. I never once saw her get angry about anything or utter a single complaint.
Dick with first wife Margie. Dick writes: My wife didn’t like Hollywood, or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner – cooked by Frank Sinatra
Before agreeing to do the film, she had balked at the romantic ballad, Through The Eyes Of Love, asking Walt to replace it with something else, and the Sherman Brothers came back with A Spoonful Of Sugar, one of the all-time great fixes.
Only one thing surpassed Julie’s spot-on instincts, and that was her voice. It scared me to death. It could have been used to tune a piano. She was pitch-perfect – and I never was. Recording with her was a challenge.
There was a lot of hanging around in the air on high wires as lights were adjusted, cameras changed and retakes done while we were supposed to be floating high above the floor. A couple of times we broke for lunch and the crew started to leave, forgetting that Julie, the kids, Ed and I were all strapped into wires and hanging 30 feet above the ground. I yelled: ‘Guys, don’t forget about us!’
All of us knew the movie was special. When it opened at the end of August 1964 with a star-studded premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, there was a standing ovation.
Mary Poppins and The Dick Van Dyke Show are the two projects from my 60-plus years in showbusiness that will go on entertaining future generations. The only career strategy I had in the early days was simply to feed my family and keep a roof over their heads. I went where the jobs were. In 1963 that was to Bye Bye Birdie, where I was partnered with Psycho star Janet Leigh – a real doll, fun on and off camera.
One afternoon, Janet was carping that she wasn’t getting the screen time she had been led to believe before shooting began. We stepped inside the soundstage. The film’s young star, Ann-Margret, was sitting on director George Sidney’s lap. ‘I think we’re in trouble, Janet,’ I said. Janet was livid. She’d had no idea that Ann-Margret’s part was going to be so all-consuming and hers would be so minor.
WHY AL PACINO SPENT TWO DAYS IGNORING ME
Warren Beatty has a hearing problem. Like many successful visionaries, he hears only what he wants to hear.
So when I told him I had read the part he had in mind for me in Dick Tracy and did not think I could do anything with it, he said: ‘Oh Jesus, you’re leaving me up in the air.’
Later I realised he had already cast the part in his head. It was a fait accompli.
He had already cast his girlfriend at the time, Madonna (below with Beatty). I spent only three days working on the film.
For the two days Al Pacino and I worked together, he never spoke to me.
After a while, I got it. Al was a method actor and always in his role. But the moment Warren said ‘Cut!’, he stuck out his hand and said: ‘Dick, how are you? How have you been?’
I never understood what I was doing there until I asked Warren why he wanted me.
‘We needed someone who was a good guy because of the twist at the end. I wanted someone nobody would ever suspect.’
I guess it worked. The movie won three Academy Awards.
When the movie wrapped, George Sidney held a party at his Beverly Hills mansion and thanked everyone. Paul Lynde, my co-star, leaned in, holding his wine glass as if he were going to say something similar. He didn’t.
‘Ann-Margret,’ he said, ‘I just want you to know that I’m the only one at this table who doesn’t want to screw you.’
Another movie I had a lot of fun on was What A Way To Go in 1963, with Shirley MacLaine, Paul Newman, Robert Mitchum and Dean Martin. I had a scene with Dean. As we worked, I thought, there is no way they can use this footage. The man is smashed.
True to form, Dean drank on the set while entertaining beautiful women who came to visit him. One day it was Ursula Andress; the next day it was some other babe. He seemed to treat every hour as if it were happy hour. But when I saw him on screen, I couldn’t tell he was drunk – and neither could anyone else.
My wife didn’t like Hollywood, or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner – cooked by Frank Sinatra. It was an evening of food, booze, stories and laughs – everything except the one thing Margie wanted: to hear the famous Sinatra voice. With Frank it clearly did not work that way. He did what he wanted to do, and that night he wanted to cook pasta, tomato sauce and garlic bread, and afterwards watch us bite into his own chocolate cake. He did not want to sing.
I understood. There was also something I did not want to do. Few people would have guessed. I had a problem with alcohol. In August 1972 I knew that the time had come to deal with it. Somewhere along the line I progressed from being just a party drinker to where I’d run a race with Margie each night to see if I could get drunk before she could get dinner on the table. I never saw myself as an alcoholic but I went to hospital for treatment. I was placed in the psych ward with other alcoholics and drug addicts. We were separated from those with serious emotional problems but we heard them. Some were having fits and throwing up from withdrawals, others agonising through the DTs. I had no such side-effects. After three weeks I was sober for the first time in nearly 15 years.
On my last day, Margie came to pick me up. However, after a few minutes, the counsellor came in and said that Margie was taking over my room. ‘She just checked herself in,’ he said. It turned out Margie had a problem with Librium. She’d been taking the drug for anxiety and depression and become hooked. I had no idea. We were quite a pair – a drunk and an addict. I fell off the wagon several times, while Margie preferred the solitude of our ranch in the desert. By 1975 I found myself talking about my ups and downs to my agent’s secretary, Michelle Triola. She was easy to talk to, she understood me. At the time, Michelle was suing actor Lee Marvin, with whom she had a six-year relationship. I was drawn into a relationship. I was involved with a woman other than my wife. It was unbelievable. I was writhing in guilt. By 1976 I had to do something. I needed to be honest.
After many emotional but productive talks, Margie and I agreed to do what we had been doing for years: live our separate lives, or more accurately, live our lives separately. But it wasn’t until 1981 that we made it permanent.
I was still battling to stay sober. All of a sudden I lost my taste and tolerance for alcohol. We were making dinner one night and after taking a sip of wine, I put the glass down and said: ‘Boy, that’s making me ill.’ From then on, my desire to drink vanished.
I liked to joke that I kept in shape to avoid assisted living, but I maintained a pace that would have had people half my age hiring an assistant. I did a number of television specials and TV detective movies and I put my limbs to work again in 2005 on the Ben Stiller movie Night At The Museum. After I did a dance scene, Ben began referring to me as ‘Dorian Van Dyke’.
Tragically, while I remained healthy, those closest to me were not so fortunate. In 2007, Margie was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was deeply affected. Even though we were long divorced, with her death I lost a part of myself. A year later, more heartbreaking news: Michelle’s doctor found a spot on her lung. She spent her last week in a coma. Her doctor said she could still hear, so I sang and talked to her until the hospice nurses told me she was gone.
Dick Van Dyke with second wife, Arlene. In his memoir, the Hollywood legend looks back on his life as one of 'magnificent indulgence'
Dick Van Dyke pictured with his brother Jerry
Dick Van Dyke as a sad clown in a scene from the film 'The Comic', 1969
These tragedies had followed the devastating loss, in 1987, of my first grandchild Jessica, daughter of my son Chris. She had died aged 13 from Reye’s syndrome, a rare disease connected to the taking of aspirin for viral infections. That loss destroyed everyone and changed our lives for ever. To add to this, my brother Jerry had a problem with his kidneys and needed a transplant. While he was on the waiting list, I changed my will to say he could have mine if I died before he received one. I thought that was pretty considerate, big brotherly and reflective of the type of person I try to be, and so did he. In fact, Jerry called me every single day. What a guy, right? Then, as soon as I answered the phone, he said: ‘Oh, you’re still alive.’
My life has been a magnificent indulgence. I’ve been able to do what I love and share it. Who would want to quit?
© Text copyright Point Productions Inc. 2011, 2016. ‘My Lucky Life In And Out Of Show Business’ by Dick van Dyke is published by John Blake Publishing on Aug 4, priced £8.99. Offer price £6.74 until Aug 14. Order at mailbookshop.co.uk or call 0844 571 0640; p&p is free on orders over £15
